Armed with paintbrush, AB de Villiers bats for sustainability through art in Mumbai
In doing so, de Villiers will kick off a 'mega citizen volunteering festival' aimed at encouraging city residents to pledge their time, effort and talent to the city through Project Mumbai, a non-government organisation.
The former cricketer is participating in 'Project Satrangi', a wall art drive by an NGO called Project Mumbai, which aims to adorn the city's otherwise dull and grey walls with colourful paintings and murals.
Mumbai: South African cricket legend A.B. de Villiers will pick up a paintbrush instead of a bat in Mumbai this Saturday as he joins a group of volunteers to paint a city wall for a campaign to promote sustainability through art.
The volunteers will support a variety of community service activities, including beach clean-ups, collection of plastic and e-waste, and ground campaigns on noise pollution.
'We have chosen a wall in south Mumbai where ABD will splash strokes on the themes of sustainability and volunteering,' Project Mumbai CEO and founder Shishir Joshi told ThePrint.
'ABD has been a strong proponent of sustainability. And not just that, he strongly believes that citizen participation through volunteering is a strong solution to tackling climate change concerns. Project Mumbai has been leading social change through citizen-led movements. Hence, it has been a perfect fit. Mind meeting the heart for a cause.'
This is the second time de Villliers is lending his support to the project, having participated last year by painting some of the city's public benches.
Started during the COVID-19 pandemic to honour frontline workers such as doctors and policemen, Project Satrangi has been transforming the public spaces of Mumbai—bridges, municipal schools and railway stations—with colourful art created by volunteers.
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Empty cityscapes turn into artworks
For Arati Kale, Lead, Volunteering, Project Mumbai, and her team at Project Satrangi, the initiative goes beyond rainbow-coloured murals on public walls.
Earlier this month, the group prepared the walls of the newly reconstructed Gokhale Bridge at Andheri for inauguration, a project close to their heart as they had observed its construction from their office located close by.
The bridge made headlines for the disruption that followed its reconstruction, when a two-metre gap between its access route and the CD Barfiwala flyover left it unusable. People had to wait for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to fix the alignment before the route became functional.
The Project Mumbai team reached out to the BMC with a proposal to paint the walls of the Gokhale Bridge. But time was limited and the BMC insisted on the themes of 'Road Safety and Mumbai' for the murals.
The team coordinated with artists, BMC officials and the traffic department before 10 of their proposed 20 sketches of witty road safety-themed murals were selected. One of them shows a man telling a tipsy motorist, 'Stay alive, don't drink and drive.'
N.K. Sinha, station master at the Mumbai Suburban Railway's Reay Road station, said the painted walls, apart from beautification, also had other positive outcomes like a reduction in crime rates at the stations as well as discouraging spitting and open defecation near the walls. 'My station is my home, people will judge me if it remains dirty,' he said.
Station Master Meena Santi of the erstwhile King's Circle station, renamed Tirthankar Parshwanath, said the artworks had become selfie points.
Children play around the walls, attracted by the images of animals and birds, she said. 'Why will anyone spit on the wall when it is meant for taking pictures?'
What citizen volunteers say
Project Satrangi focuses on the local community to recruit volunteers from different age groups. Kale said the volunteers didn't need to have specialised knowledge. Professional artists made the sketches, while the volunteers filled in the colours.
Ranjana, a 58-year-old volunteer, who was at a railway station site for about two hours helping colour a tree, said it 'was therapeutic'.
'It feels you are contributing to a social cause and doing good for the city,' said Harold, a 41-year-old resident of Santacruz (West), who volunteered for a project at King's Circle, Masjid, Kalwa and Thane railway stations.
Joshi said that in a separate initiative by Project Mumbai, ramps are being built in public spaces with recycled plastic. 'It is about making Mumbai India's kindness capital,' he said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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